the mountain trip

by holly marshburn

Holly Marshburn

RJ and Rick

We met at Hardees in Leland for an 8:15am departure.  We took 74/76 /u> the way to Riegelwood where we made a pit stop for gas since someone, not naming any names (but she did get a short-bus card later in the weekend) hadn’t filled up the night before.  Then, after six years of trusted service, Judy’s battery gave out on her so we got to watch some men-folk try to give her a push start.  Luckily, our always prepared First Officer had jumper cables and they got her going.

The Blues Sisters

There was a stopover at the Sandhills HD to buy a new battery and window shop for new bikes.  Kowthy found a nice Fat Boy that she’s going to have to get real soon! We took 87 past Tar Heel, 20 to Raeford, 211 to Aberdeen, and 15/501 to Carthage where we stopped for a yummy lunch.  After two rings around downtown Carthage we took 24/27 to Albemarle, 52 to Salisbury, then 601 to 421 to Wilkesboro.

After ten hours or so, a quick right turn on 16 took us on to our motel in West Jefferson where the first group was waiting for our arrival.  Our festive evening consisted of a nice dinner at the motel restaurant then back to the parking lot for a few drinks, a little music, and some dancing -till Habib tried to quiet us down for the night.  Betty, Dottie, and a couple others were seen getting to know Jose real well. There was some changing of location but the party went on till almost mid-night.  Shortcake was heard saying, “We’re staying up till my birthday!”

The GPS is what?

Kick stands went up at 9:00am Saturday morning and we headed northwest. We cruised through the mountains, tamed the first section of the Snake on 421, made a quick stop in Trade, Tennessee. Next we took a break in Shady Valley for a soda and there were 421 Snake patches available at the country store.  Our next stop was in Abingdon, Virginia for a gourmet lunch at Long John Silvers.  After that, we took Hwy 58, Jeb Stuart Hwy. We reached bottom of our last section of twisters for the day for a stop near Volney - at a country story that had no electricity and no gas.   The front porch was sunny and was sporting some comfortable looking rocking chairs. And I did find some fine lookin‘ ‘maters.  It was fortunate that those of us who were running on fumes were able to make it to the next gas station/ tack store. We headed down Hwy 16 and back to the motel for a quiet evening and an early night to bed, except for First Lady Dottie and me. We stayed up talking way past everyone else. We finally made it back to our rooms sometime around 9:15pm.

I joined the first group out for the trip home. We hauled ass down 421 all the way back with only a stop in Sanford for lunch and gas stops.  I am so glad I made the West Jefferson mountain trip.  The ride was marvelous; I made new friends, saw great sites, drank lots of drink, and ate way too much food!

Riding around Chatham

Toppin off the lube

Toppin' off the lube

Still riding around Chatham

Still riding around Chatham

I'm not sure standing under this sign is a good thing

Nooo, the road is the Snake

I'll take this one

I'll take this